


Let Us Be Learning

by eleutheria_has_won



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aftermath of Genocide, Fanfiction of Fanfiction, Gen, Poetry, The Entire City Was Silent, natcat5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-21
Updated: 2014-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 23:05:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1665797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleutheria_has_won/pseuds/eleutheria_has_won
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a poem that every man, woman, and child in Derse can recite almost entirely by heart. </p>
<p>(Because sometimes, paradigm shift means realizing just what you've done.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>[[Inspired by/based on natcat5's The Entire City Was Silent]]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let Us Be Learning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [natcat5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/natcat5/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Entire City Was Silent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/392977) by [natcat5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/natcat5/pseuds/natcat5). 



> Tribute goes to natcat5 and her story The Entire City Was Silent, which is beautiful and painful and glorious and heart-wrenching in so many ways, and whose story about racism and massacre and consequence inspired this.

There is a poem that every man, woman, and child in Derse can recite from memory. It is recited in their schools. It is sung before their gatherings and events. The final verse is engraved on the doors to the capitol building.

In the wake of the Green Sun Massacre and the ruin which followed, society was forced to undergo a massive paradigm shift. Economically, politically, conceptually - so many changes, in so little time, left the city unlike any time in its history previous. The Derse of the post-Massacre world was very, very different from the Derse of the pre-Massacre world. And there was no greater change than that which affected the collective public opinion of the Infected.

(which was good, because while there were no more trolls, no more vampires, no more mutants, no more Agents, there were always still children of misfortune - and Children of Misfortune.)

Ten years post-Massacre, a young human wrote a poem based on her father's memories of the Massacre, as well as historical accounts from the soldiers who had survived it, which summed up the changing attitude towards the Infected quite nicely. The work caught on among her peers, becoming something of a personal anthem among the day's youth, and developed over time to become a cultural marker within Derse. Popularity brought it to the attention of the city's extant government, who then declared it a historic work, thus leading to its eventual status as a hallmark of Dersite government, society, and cultural understanding.

There's no one in the city who doesn't know it by heart. 

_ Let Us Be Learning _

_There they lay_  
 _The bodies of the ones unloved_  
 _Mothers, brothers, sisters, lovers_  
 _In waves they lay_  
 _In the wake of green they had fallen  
_ _And so there they lay_

_Before they'd screamed_  
 _Towers echoed with the howling_  
 _Us, they, them, we,_  
 _Everyone came under the flame_  
 _Us, they fled, afraid, alive_  
 _And we_  
 _Them, we died,  
_ _And there was no more screaming_

_The entire city was silent_  
 _But Before that, there was:_  
 _Abel  
_ _and Cain_

_But which one of these is which?_

_Once in a city there were two brothers_  
 _And one side called others_  
 _MONSTERS_  
 _This one, this one had fangs_  
 _Like knives, claws like razors_  
 _His eyes, in the light, were unlike another's_  
 _And that one,_  
 _That one killed children_  
 _for the very_  
 _same  
_ _thing_

_(and wolves were screaming_  
 _as they fed on the dead, the running_  
 _and voices calling_  
 _beckon exodus, there's nothing left here for us now_  
 _we're not giving up, no way in hell_  
 _so we're running_  
 _because this, this is what we DO deserve_  
 _to keep living  
_ _and loving)_

_(There is hope in the living and loving)_

_It's amazing how  
_ _we trick ourselves sometimes_

_(but wolves are known to devour the running)_

_In the wake of the flame_  
 _The green, the glow_  
 _The rage_  
 _Some people rose, and some people didn't_  
 _Those who did walked away,_  
 _Into their homes, into the shells of their selves_  
 _Which no longer fit_  
 _Because when you watch someone die?  
_ _and you do nothing?_

_Part of you dies with them_

_We would know_  
 _Part of us died with them  
_ _We would know_

_And we know that you can't go back_

_So_  
 _The world changed then, took shapes it hadn't_  
 _Before_  
 _Before was different_  
 _Please, God please, let us pray_  
 _Dear God, Let us pray  
_ _That Before will always be different_

_Now_  
 _The entire city was silent_  
 _But Before that, there was:_  
 _Green fire_  
 _Abel  
_ _and Cain_

_Now_  
 _We pray that never again_  
 _Please, dear God, let us learn_  
 _Please, God, we – us – them – they – let us pray for learning_  
 _Let us not be like Before_  
 _Let us be living_  
 _Let us be loving_  
 _Let us be learning  
_ _A better, truer definition of monsters_


End file.
